Assault consists of insulting someone by abuse or rough handling without actually causing injury. It is less serious than wounding (§19) but as we should expect, considerations of social status bulk large: slaves and children must be extremely deferential to their masters and parents, though foreigners have a particularly privileged position. But in general Plato’s law reinforces the social structure of the state.
In this section, exhortation and law are mingled even more than usual.
ATHENIAN: All the injuries we have so far mentioned involve the use of violence, and so too do the various kinds of assault. In these cases, the point that every man, woman and child should bear in mind is this:
Age is always very much more highly regarded than youth, and this is so both among the gods and among men, if they intend [c] to live in security and happiness. Therefore, the assault of an older man by a younger in public is a disgusting sight, and the gods hate to see it. No young man who is struck by an old man should ever make a fuss, but put up with his bad temper, and so establish a claim to similar respect when he himself grows old.
Our law, then, should run as follows:
Everyone in our community must show, by his words and actions, respect for his senior. A man should avoid crossing any person (male or female) who is twenty years older than himself, regarding him or her in the same way as he would his father or [d] mother. For the sake of the gods of birth, he must always keep himself from striking anyone old enough to have been his parent. Similarly, he must refrain from striking a foreigner, whether the latter is a long-established resident or a recent immigrant. He must never go so far as to punish such a person by hitting him, either by attacking him first, or in self-defence.
57 A. (a) If he thinks the foreigner is unruly and insolent in an attack on himself, and needs to be punished, he must arrest him and take him, without hitting him, to the court of the City-Wardens, so that the foreigner may learn to banish all thoughts of ever [e] striking a citizen again. The City-Wardens must take the man and interrogate him, with proper respect for the god who is the protector of foreigners. If in fact the foreigner seems to have been in the wrong in striking the citizen,
the City-Wardens must put a stop to this unruliness, so characteristic of a foreigner; they must give him as many strokes of the lash as will equal the number of blows he himself inflicted.
(b) If he is not in the wrong,
they must warn and rebuke the man who made the arrest, and dismiss the pair of them.
B. If one man strikes another who
(a) is about the same age, or
(b) is older, but has no children,
[880a] whether the attacker is an old man striking an old man, or a young man striking a young man, the man attacked must defend himself by natural means – with his own bare hands, without a weapon. But if a man over forty years of age has the face to fight someone, whether
(i) he strikes the first blow, or
(ii) fights in self-defence,
he will get the reputation of being an uncivilized boor with the manners of a slave, and this ignominious punishment will serve him right.
A man who is easily persuaded by these words of exhortation will give us no trouble; but stubborn people, who ignore the preamble, ought to be ready to take more notice of the following regulations:
C. If anyone strikes a man twenty years or more his senior, [b] any bystander, if he is neither of the same age nor younger than the combatants, should separate them,
or be treated under the law as a wretched coward. If he is of the same age as the person attacked, or younger, he should go to his assistance as if it were his own brother or father being wronged, or some still more senior relative.
D. In addition, the man who dares to strike his senior as defined1 must stand trial for assault. If he loses the case,
he must be imprisoned for not less than a year. If the court [c] fixes a longer imprisonment, the period it decides on shall stand.
E. If a foreigner, or a resident alien, strikes a man twenty years or more his senior, the same regulation [57 C] about assistance from passers-by shall be enforced in the same way as before.
(a) A man found guilty of such a charge, if he is a foreigner not resident in the state,
must pay his penalty by spending two years in prison.
(b) If it is a resident alien who is in breach of these regulations,
he must go to prison for three years, except that the court may [d] specify a longer period by way of penalty.
F. The passer-by who comes across any of these cases of assault and does not give assistance as required by law
must be fined: a member of the first property-class 100 drachmas, a member of the second fifty drachmas, a member of the third thirty drachmas, and a member of the fourth twenty drachmas. The court in such cases2 is to consist of the Generals, Company-Commanders, Tribe-Leaders and Cavalry-Commanders.
Some laws, it seems, are made for the benefit of honest men, to teach them the rules of association that have to be [e] observed if they are to live in friendship; others are made for those who refuse to be instructed and whose naturally tough natures have not been softened enough to stop them turning to absolute vice. It will be they who have prompted the points I am just going to make, and it is for their benefit that the lawgiver will be compelled to produce his laws, although he would wish never to find any occasion to use them. Consider a man who will dare to lay hands on his father or mother or their forebears by way of violent assault. He will fear neither the wrath of the gods above nor the punishments said to await [881a] him in the grave; he will hold the ancient and universal tradition in contempt, on the strength of his ‘knowledge’ in a field where he is in fact a total ignoramus. He will therefore turn criminal, and will stand in need of some extreme deterrent. Death, however, is not an extreme penalty: the sufferings said to be in store for these people in the world to come are much more extreme than that. But although the threat of these sufferings is no idle one, it has no deterrent effect at all on souls like these. If it did, we should never have to deal with assaults on mothers, and wicked and presumptuous attacks [b] on other forebears. I conclude, therefore, that the punishments men suffer for these crimes here on earth while they are alive should as far as possible equal the penalties beyond the grave.
Our next enactment, then, should run as follows:
G. If a man who is not in the grip of insanity dares to strike his father or mother, or their father or mother, the first point is that the passer-by must render assistance as provided in former cases.
(a) (i) If the resident alien renders assistance,
he shall be invited to a front seat at the games;
(ii) if he does not render assistance,
he must go into permanent exile from the land.
[c] (b) (i) If the non-resident alien renders assistance,
he shall be commended.
(ii) If he does not render assistance,
he must be reprimanded.
(c) (i) If a slave renders assistance,
he shall be set free.
(ii) If he does not render assistance,
he must receive a hundred strokes of the lash.
If the crime was committed in the market-place, the whipping should be administered by the Market-Wardens; if in the city but not in the market, by the City-Warden in residence; if somewhere in the countryside, by the chief Country-Wardens.
(d) Everyone of citizen birth who passes by, whether man, [d] woman or child, must shout ‘you wicked monster’ at the attacker, and repel him. If the passer-by makes no attempt to repel him,
he must be liable under the law to a curse from Zeus, guardian of the family and protector of parents.
H. If a man is convicted of an assault on his parents,
he must be permanently rusticated from the city to some other part of the country, and be banned from all sacred places.
I. (a) If he returns to the city,
he must be punished by death.
(b) If he does not keep away from sacred places,
the Country-Wardens must punish him by a whipping, and by any other method at their discretion.
J. If any free man eats or drinks in company with such a person, or associates with him in some other similar fashion, [e] even by deliberately failing to cut him on meeting,
he must not enter any temple, or market-place, or any part of the city, before he has been purified, bearing in mind that he has come into contact with a misfortune that brings a curse upon a man.
K. If he disobeys the law and in defiance of it pollutes temples and city,
any official who discovers the fact and does not take the man to court will find that this is one of the most serious charges against him at his scrutiny.3
[882a] L. If a slave strikes a free man, foreigner or citizen, the passer-by who does not render assistance
must pay the penalty prescribed for his property-class.
M. The passers-by in conjunction with the person attacked must bind the slave and hand him over to his victim; the [b] victim must take him, put him in chains, and give him as many strokes of the whip as he likes, provided he does not diminish the value of the slave to his master; he should then hand him over to the latter’s legal ownership. This legal ownership must be subject to the following provision. Any slave who has struck a free man, other than on the orders of the officials,4 must be tied up; his master must receive him from the assaulted person and not release him [c] before the slave persuades his victim that he deserves to live free of constraint.
The same regulations should apply in all cases (a) as between women, (b) when women prosecute men, and (c) when men prosecute women.